2019 Qatar Moto3 FP1 Result: Fenati Always Makes An Entry

Submitted by Zara Daniela on Fri, 2019-03-08 11:51

Lightweight class bikes finally celebrated the official end of the off season in Qatar sunshine and no man was happier to be back than the perpetually prodigal son of Moto3, Romano Fenati. The Italian repented of his highly publicised sins and was welcomed back into the Snipers Team, rewarding them with excellent form in testing and following it through with the fastest time in FP1. Some challengers did present in the final ten minutes of the session but the Italian hit back and became the only rider to dip into the 2:05s and near the outright fastest lap of the circuit for the class.

The seven tenths of a second chasm was eventually cut to half by class veteran Jakub Kornfeil, who left it late to climb the timesheets to second position. Lorenzo Dalla Porta was hindered by some track limits infringements but managed to join the top three, half a second off the leader. A more settled Dennis Foggia proved his value in the SKY team once again with a fourth position in FP1, ahead of the equally familiar face of Ayumu Sasaki.

Toni Arbolino, Aron Canet, Alonso Lopez and Kaito Toba completed the top nine, all four riders within half a tenth of each other. The top ten was rounded out by the (theoretically) rookie Celestino Vietti, the SKY rider the first to miss the one second cut-off to the leader.

Down in 13th position, Niccolo Antonelli took the unpleasant honour of recording the first crash of the season early on in turn nine, while the likes of Gabriel Rodrigo and Jaume Masia had a slower start while still recovering from fairly recent injuries.